1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an air conditioner for an automotive vehicle, and especially relates to a technique of reducing the space required to be occupied by blowoff ducts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, an air conditioner for a vehicle such as a car comprises a blower unit with an air blower, a cooler unit with an evaporator and a heater unit with a heater core which are connected with one another in series, as disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laying Open Gazette No. 61-67617, for example. According to this air conditioner, the air sent from the blower unit is cooled by the cooler unit or heated by the heater unit for adjustment to a target temperature and such adjusted air is blown out through a heater blowoff nozzle, a ventilating blowoff nozzle and a defrosting blowoff nozzle in fixed blowing off modes into the interior of a car for regulation of the interior temperature to a comfortable temperature, ventilation, defrosting of window, glass, etc.
In general, the ventilating blowoff nozzle is opened at three places, namely, right and left opposite ends and a center of an instrument panel which is located at the front part of the care interior on the other hand, the heater unit is arranged substantially at the center between right and left sides of a body of the car and communicates with each ventilating blowoff nozzle via a connecting duct.
Such a connecting duct, however, has a comparatively large diameter for flowing the conditioning air at a high flow rate. Therefore, a comparatively large amount of space is occupied by the connecting ducts, thereby causing difficulties in fitting other various parts to be installed in the instrument panel, such as meters, steering fitting mechanism, glove box, etc., and the arrangement, layout, design and shape of the instrument panel itself are restricted.
In a construction where the air conditioning unit is arranged at the front part of a car interior and the conditioning air is blown out only through front blowoff nozzles, the air conditioning of the area adjacent a rear seat in the rear part of the car interior is not satisfactory. In order to make up for such lowering of the air conditioning function in the rear area, it is suggested to arrange a blowoff nozzle for the rear seat at the center of a floor member in the car interior and to connect the blowoff nozzle and the air conditioning unit at the front part of the car interior by a connecting duct so that the conditioning air also can be discharged through such blowoff nozzle toward the rear seat, as disclosed by Japanese Utility Model Registration Laying Open Gazette No. 57-46007.
However, in the above construction also, the blowoff nozzle for the rear seat must be of large size due to the space occupied by the connecting duct, with the result that the space available for the car interior is reduced and the layout of other parts to be installed in the car interior is restricted.
The present invention has been made in view of the above problems and has for its object to dispense with a connecting duct which occupies a large area, to increase the amount of space available for other parts in the instrument panel, and to improve the flexibility of arrangement and layout of such parts by improving the air blowoff construction of an air conditioner for a vehicle.
Another object of the present invention is to dispense with a connecting duct which connects the air conditioning unit at the front part of a car interior to a blowoff nozzle for a rear seat of the car and to discharge comfortable conditioning air which is controlled for temperature and humidity toward the rear seat, thereby improving the air conditioning function to the rear seat.